Melbourne Fringe – Plan C

Melb Fringe Plan CPlan C is a group of three young women playing original tunes they described in the Fringe guide as “cute, quirky and sometimes a little funny!”

These Monash Uni classical music students were Cassandra on lead vocal and ukulele, Jessie on oboe, and Nikki on cello as a stand in for the regular violinist, who was (as we were told in a cryptic and slightly sheepish way by Cassandra) “not available”.

Things had a bit of a rough start, as Cassandra dropped an F-bomb down the mike when reading on her phone that friends would be late. In a sparse room, things were starting to head towards the uncomfortable end of the Fringe spectrum…

Fortunately, the music was quite listenable. Cassandra wrote (mostly in her teens) and introduced Plan C’s folky tunes. Many of which relate to ex-boyfriends, charting the course from planning ahead for a life together, to realising a lover might actually be a deadbeat, and deciding a little self love might be a better option.

It was unfortunate that at various times lyrics were lost due to excessive amplification of the instruments, making it quite difficult to fully appreciate the songs. The tunes themselves often had a similar tempo or structure, or reduced the appeal of a nice idea by unduly repeating choruses.

It might benefit Plan C to consult their tutors and look at how they may introduce some more variety into the set. There was certainly a kind of naïve charm to some of the songs, and the performances were pleasing to the ear.

The Fringe web site fairly accurately describes the songs as featuring “cringeworthy teenage emotions”, and “the unfortunate recurrence of men in our lives”. Well, even Frente! had to start somewhere. Plan C have a twee but refreshingly unmanufactured sound. We may expect that they’ll broaden their appeal when a little extra life experience gives them some more substantial topics to sing about.

Plan C
Queen of Hearts, 189 Smith Street, Fitzroy
Performance: Thursday 21 September 2017 – 6.00pm
Season ended
Information: ww.melbournefringe.com.au

Image: Plan C

Review: Jason Whyte